NICL AO - 4th April 2015 - Exam Analysis (Morning Session)

NICL Administrative Officer Exam was flagged off from April 4, 2015. The test was conducted in two parts – Objective and Descriptive. The former was a computer based test while the latter was Paper/Pen. The descriptive test started immediately after the objective part was over.  You will have to type your answers on the computer using keyboard.

There were 200 questions in Part A (Objective), which had to be answered in 120 minutes. Part B (Descriptive) had 3 questions, which had to be answered in 45 minutes.

There were four sections in the Objective Test:

• Reasoning
• General Awareness
• Quantitative Aptitude
• English Language

All the other sections, except the English language section, were available bilingually, that is, in both English and Hindi. Each question had 5 options and was of 1 mark each. There was a negative marking of 0.25 marks for every incorrect answer.

Part B (Descriptive) tested the English language skills of the candidates. It comprised questions on Précis, Essay and Letter Writing.

The exam is being conducted in two time slots – morning and evening.

Exam Pattern - 

Section	Total Ques	Level of difficulty	Good Attempts
Reasoning	40	Moderate	20 - 24
General Awareness	40	Moderate	25 – 28
Quantitative Aptitude	40	Hard	15 – 18
English Language	40	Easy	24 - 28
Total	160		84 - 98

Reasoning 

This section primarily saw questions that were Moderate in terms of difficulty. This section was a bit time consuming. Majority of the questions in this section were from Data Sufficiency, Syllogism, Coding – Decoding and Sitting arrangement.

The detail breakup is as follows:

• Series & Alphabet
• Blood Relations
• Statement & Conclusion
• Ranking/Arrangement
• Syllogisms
• Seating Arrangement
• Coding- Decoding
• Data Sufficiency & analysis
• Direction Test
• Analogy & Classification

General Awareness

This section consisted of questions from Current Affairs (National & International news –last 5 to 6 months), Sports, Scientific Research, New Inventions, Indian Economy, Banking, Insurance and Financial Sector ( Last 5-6 months ), Important days & Capitals & currencies

Candidates who have kept themselves abreast with current affairs of the past six months would have easily answered 17-20 questions on General Awareness. Overall difficulty level of the section was easy. 

Quantitative Aptitude

Exam Setters focused on all the type of questions to test the exam takers. This section was hard and time taking.

• Number Series
• Simplification
• Time and Distance
• Time and Work
• Data Interpretation
• Partnership
• Profit & Loss
• Simple & Compound interest
• Simplification
• Permutations & Combinations
• Mixture & Allegation
• Percentage

English Language

The overall level of difficulty of this section was easy to _________. The section comprised questions on Phrase Replacement, Error Spotting, Reading Comprehension, FIB (2 blanks), Para-jumbles and Cloze Test. While the passages were not difficult to read, the choices were quite close and required careful examination.

The detail breakup is as follows:

• Para Jumble
• Spot the Error
• Comprehension
• Fill in the Blanks
• Idioms & Phrases
• Synonyms-Antonyms
• One word Substitution

Part B

Part B of the test was descriptive in nature.  There were three different types of questions in this section. The questions could be directly answered from the passage and were easy in nature. 

The details of this part are as given below:

Topic	Description	Marks Allotted
Comprehension	1 letter with a choice of 3 topics (2 formal and the other informal)	15
Précis Writing	1 précis of 150 words	10
Essay Writing	1 essay with a choice of 3 topics	15

Disclaimer: All information on cut-offs, analysis, answer key and scores are based on independent analysis and evaluation made by BankersAdda. We do not take responsibility for any decision that might be taken, based on this information.